But in all seriousness, somebody needs to explain to Republicans, as nicely and thoroughly as possible, how it came to pass that a skinny black guy with a funny name, who had just presided over four extremely tough years for the economy, was able be decisively reelected.

Because based on why I'm hearing on the right, most Republican's still don't quite get it.

So, I will kindly do the honors. There are the six reasons:

1.Demography: The country keeps getting more brown, more secular, more “young,” (i.e., people born after 1970) and more tolerant. If the country had simply been as brown, secular, young and tolerant as in 2008 this would have been much closer. Nothing you can do about this trend; all you can do is try to be less unappetizing to these groups.

2. The Issues: Your positions on most of the main issues of the day—on immigration, healthcare, gay rights, reproductive rights, the environment, tax policy, foreign policy, entitlements, how to close the budget deficit—are less popular than the Democratic positions. Polls have consistently shown this. In those few areas where you still hold an advantage (e.g., gun rights, “law and order”), Democrats have often already surrendered. If the country were voting to see which political platform, rather than which candidate, would be in charge of the country, you would have lost in a historic landslide. I know you wish that some members of your party (Murdock, Akins) could have just shut the F up, but honestly, what they were saying was not out of whack with your actual platform. If your modus operandi is “shhh, please remember not to talk about our platform in public like we really mean that stuff” that could be an ongoing problem. You can't be sure everyone will get the memo. Maybe, instead, reconsider your official positions on the issues.

3. Your Nominating Process--Part I: For some reason, your process drew a disproportionate share of people who much of the country viewed, and with pretty good reason, as joke candidates. Joke as in “this person IS a joke” (Cane. Trump). Or as in “you’ve got to be joking if you think this person as ANY chance of winning the general election” (Santorum. Gingrich. Paul. Bachmann). Sure, the Democrats have had joke candidates too. But never have any of them been front runners. And in this case, you had several joke candidates taking turns as front runner! Then some of these people, invigorated by their (ephemeral) front runner status, proceeded to shred your eventual nominee in public instead of playing nice and focusing on their own pet issues as is the usual custom of joke candidates. As a result, there was not much Obama ever said about Romney that one of your primary candidates didn’t say first, and often more viciously. Newt especially comes to mind. I know it's not possible to prevent joke candidates from running. But maybe there is some way to prevent them from being front runners? Maybe they be somehow encouraged to play nice?

4. Your Nominating Process--Part II. Of the non-joke candidates, your process picked the weakest to oppose Obama. You know as well as I do that Romney had no reliable principles (other than that Mitt Romney should be President), or if he did, he chose not to communicate what those were. The fact of no observable principles, and the flip-flopping that made this so apparent, discredited Romney in the eyes of too many people who might otherwise have been persuadable. Also, having as your standard bearer a stupendously rich and (to put is nicely) aggressive capitalist--one easily portrayed as aloof and awkward and out of touch--really hurt among working class whites economically depressed swing states. Daniels, Pawlenty or Huntsman would have been far stronger candidates. Yeah, they are moderates. But so was Romney. Probably. Sort of hard to tell, for sure. If your nominating process wasn't flooded with joke candidates, maybe these non-joke alternatives to Romney would not have dropped out so fast.

5. Tactics Backfire--Part I. Your side pulled out the stops to use legislative means and rules change (e.g., for early voting) to try to suppress the votes of traditionally Democratic groups. This helped to fire up what otherwise was not a super enthusiastic Democratic base. Ask yourself this: wouldn’t you crawl over glass to vote if someone had tried, but failed, to suppress the voting on your side like this? Then to put icing on the cake, most the new laws got reversed in the courts. Fired up Democratic base + not many actually suppressed = very bad combo. I would suggest you just totally give up on this tactic. You've had nice long run with it, but I'm guessing it's going to hurt you more than help going forward you given demographic trends.

6. Tactics backfire--Part II. Your side had a unprecedentedly large number of memes that simply were not supported by the facts. But they weren’t just passing memes. They were standard stump lines and commercials put in regular rotation. And you persisted in using them long after they had been debunked by the consensus of fact checkers. Obama never went on an “apology” tour. The “that” he said “you didn’t build” was roads and bridges, not your business. Regulations have not gone up under Obama, much less quadrupled. The yearly deficit has not doubled on his watch. Obama never “gutted” welfare-to-work. Chrysler never said they were moving jobs to China. This unprecedented disregard for facts became an ongoing story of its own in the campaign, and deservedly so. Journalists love to show their impartiality by dutifully noting “everyone does it” when reporting on the latest whopper, and this ordinarily let’s your side get away with a lot, but in this case the level of dishonesty was too much to swallow even by the jaded journalistic standards of the day. We're not expecting you to be choir boys. Just try to ratchet this back to typical expectations for modern politics.

I've tried to be thorough here, because I hear a lot of Republicans saying "it was just demographics" or "it was just a weak candidate". And it may be true, this time, that any one of the above was enough to make the difference, because this time you were running against a black guy with a funny name and a bad economy.

Next time, you likely won't be. So fixing only one of these problems will not be enough.

Great analysis. I'm sure there are more reasons. But reading yours, what strikes me is that the root cause is the abandonment of the true course of the Republican Party -- conservatism colored with respect for the country, the population, and the process -- in favor of an unmoving, strident, right-wing self-righteous strain of selfishness which colored everything, and underlay all your points -- it led to the destructive nominee cluster who dominated the airwaves for a year; it drove away any thoughtful moderate except the egotist you mentioned. It rejected traditional principles, took irrelevant extremist positions, and led to full buy-in to the extraordinary number of flat-out lies on which the critique of Obama was based.

But in all seriousness, somebody needs to explain to Republicans, as nicely and thoroughly as possible, how it came to pass that a skinny black guy with a funny name, who had just presided over four extremely tough years for the economy, was able be decisively reelected.

Someone posted Kathleen Parker’s comments on how the Republicans undermined their own candidate.

1. Republican Leaders Living in a Bubble2. Primary Leeches3. Pandering to Party nitwits4. The self-righteous Santoriumites ( “Sit down. Legitimate rape? Put on your clown suit and go play in the street.”)The selectivity of the Obama Campaign (“Obama’s campaign was busy pinpointing specific voters, practically learning the names of their dogs, and buying ads in niche markets.”)Marginalizing too many sub-groups if you add ‘em all up, you lose.

Your side had a unprecedentedly large number of memes that simply were not supported by the facts. But they weren’t just passing memes. They were standard stump lines and commercials put in regular rotation. And you persisted in using them long after they had been debunked by the consensus of fact checkers. Obama never went on an “apology” tour. The “that” he said “you didn’t build” was roads and bridges, not your business. Regulations have not gone up under Obama, much less quadrupled. The yearly deficit has not doubled on his watch. Obama never “gutted” welfare-to-work. Chrysler never said they were moving jobs to China. This unprecedented disregard for facts became an ongoing story of its own in the campaign, and deservedly so. Journalists love to show their impartiality by dutifully noting “everyone does it” when reporting on the latest whopper, and this ordinarily let’s your side get away with a lot, but in this case the level of dishonesty was too much to swallow even by the jaded journalistic standards of the day. We're not expecting you to be choir boys. Just try to ratchet this back to typical expectations for modern politics.

Gordon,

You touched on the main problem. I saw it 4 years ago. The following is an aggregated post on Curmudgeons Corner. The original was several post originally on the Christian Fools and another thread reposted to the FreeForAll board circa August 2008.

The problem is that the Republicans have been helping their master loot the country while running a scam on Christians.

I am a conservative Christian, Southern Reagan Republican. I never officially joined the party, but started voting Republican in 1980 and started voting a straight ticket in 1994. In 1979, we in the south were being assaulted by the U.S. Government. The Federal government through the Supreme court, in 1963, had told us that we could no longer teach our children the things that we held sacred at our schools, ten years later we were told we had to accept infanticide as a part of our society. I, and I am guessing those that became the “Christian Right”, felt that the Federal Government had imposed a foreign morality on us.

Additionally, in about the late ‘70’s there was a push to teach “sex” education, and how to whom and what was going to be taught was dictated to us by the Federal government, far away in Washington. Reagan came down and told the south, that if we had “states rights” we would be free to live as we saw fit, and others would be free to live as they saw fit. We did not wish to impose our morality on the rest of the country, as we did not want one imposed on us.

As a Christian, I live in the Kingdom of God. My first allegiance is to Christ. Everything else can only be done, if it is in compliance with the will of God. So, when I vote, if there is a choice that complies with the will of God and with it comes a self sacrifice, I must follow the will of God.

Because of this, when the choice is between Republicans who will uphold Christian values, and Democrats who will not. The choice, no matter how painful is always Republican.

To sum up. I believed that the Republican party held these following things a principles, and have voted for them since 1980.

1. The citizens of each state have the right to their own value system, and can impose it on themselves with out outside interference.

2. The Federal Government should be limited is size and scope.

3. The Federal Government should be fiscally responsible.

These were my reasons for supporting the Republican Party.

Somewhere down the line, the Republican Party ceased to be the party of live and let live, and became the defender of Christian morals. As a Christian I quickly fell in line, and believed that the Republican party was the party that held the moral high ground. Because my first allegiance is to the kingdom of God, my vote was held captive by the party.

We will soon see why I am free. The reasons are not listed in reverse order of importance, rather in sequence that allowed me to become an Obama supporter.

The Awakening

Harriet Miers. In 1963 the Supreme court shocked the south with its prayer in school decision, and earned generational scorn with Roe VS Wade. When Reagan became president, the goal of the religious right, was nothing less than a complete purging of the supreme court. In 2005, with the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, we were near the end of a 20 year struggle to reshape the Supreme Court and remove the infanticide imposed on us by Roe VS. Wade.

George Bush nominated Harriet Miers. I did not know who she was, or what she stood for, but strongly suspected that she was nominated just so the White House would not have to be bothered with a contentious confirmation hearing. Later, conservative Christians help force her withdrawal. A more conservative judge was nominated.

This action raised my eye brows and made me suspicious that the Republican party was stringing me along and was only playing the “morals” card when they needed to drum up support.

Finally, on a more practical level. It was apparent that the Republican majority in the Senate was waning and it did not matter how many more justices any Republican president might nominate, at least for a few years, the Supreme court will not get any more conservative.

VOTING FOR CHRISTIAN VALUES AS IT CONCERNS THE SUPREME COURT, IS NOW A MOOT POINT.

The Epiphany

Mark Foley. Are more accurately, the protection of Mark Foley by the House leadership for the sole purpose of retaining power. This whole incident with Mark Foley drove home the suspicion that I had about being scammed by the Republican party. After everything was revealed, it was apparent that Mark Foley and his seduction of young men had been going on for a quite a while, and the leadership knew about it for quite a while, and had done nothing about it.

That is when I reached an epiphany. The Republican party was not going to represent my Christian values in Washington in any meaningful way, and…….

VOTING ON THE BASIS OF MORAL CODES WAS POINTLESS, NO MATTER WHO I VOTED FOR, MY CHRISTIAN VALUES WERE GOING TO BE IGNORED!

After 20 years, I was free to vote other issues. Immediately, the voice of a Southern Baptist preacher kept ringing in my ears.

“Free at last, free at last! Thank God almighty, I am free at last!”

The Last Straw

This is the last reason I had for voting for the Republican party. I believe that the power and greatness of the United States is derived from the ability of people who live in different environments, with different histories, and cultures, to be different, and odd and most importantly rebellious.

The Republican party threw the idea of States Rights out the window with the attempt to pass abortion regulations, the Defense of Marriage act, and finally the imposition of the Real ID Act of 2005.

What really scares me is my remembrances of “A Man for All Seasons”.

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

What is going to happen to me and my beliefs now. There is no law to protect me, the Republicans have by their own actions removed the protection that States Rights might have provided me.

I finally realized that the Republicans are not against a big federal government, they just want the big and powerful federal government to do different things. So……..

VOTING FOR REPUBLICANS WITH THE IDEA THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MIGHT BE LIMITED IN SIZE AND IN SCOPE IS POINTLESS.

No Reason to vote “for” anyone

Now we start getting into a transition. The first three reasons I listed were reasons why I am not required to vote Republican. This reason was a belief I heard, it was slogan, but I never really was able to make the facts of rising Federal debt align with the idea that was trumpeted that the Republican party was one of frugality.

The Republicans coined the phrase “Tax and spend Democrat.” But it seems the Republicans never had a problem spending. In the past years, it is quite apparent that the Republicans would be glad to spend my money, even if they had to borrow it.

Now it is the Democrats who are pushing for “Pay as you go”. Maybe if we had no money in the defense budget, we would not have been able to start two wars at the same time.

Oh well, it is now apparent that the Republican party will bankrupt this country. This isn’t to say that the Democrats won’t. It just means….

VOTING FOR FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY IS POINTLESS.

Hating Evil

Every point I have made until now, is why I don’t have to vote for the Republican party. Now I am going to cover why I have to vote against it. The Republican party has systematically removed protection from the average, or middle class citizens in this country. They have stripped use of the ability demand fair wages, to invest in the stock market and to have freedom from oppression by our own government.

I’ll cover oppression first. I believe that anyone who is free to lie --- is free to rob, steal and enslave. I believe that our government has lied to us so much it can’t even tell the difference.

Abu Ghraib

Abu Ghraib was blamed on a few rogue soldiers. This is a lie. I believe the pressure to use what ever was necessary to save the “Mission accomplished party” came from the top of the Pentagon, and was signed off by the White House if not the President himself.

I spent a tour in the Coast Guard, so I know how one is indoctrinated into the command and control structure of the military. Those soldiers did not act without orders, They only act on orders.

I also spent some time working in the intelligence community. Everything there is controlled. The controls were put in place to keep the intelligence community from running unauthorized wars, and working for personal gain. From my perspective, the things that happened at Abu Ghraib, appear to be to have been ordered from above.

Now, this does not mean that the Secretary of Defense and the White House chief of staff sat around and dreamed up ways of violating moral law. No; humans learn from others mistakes. Reagan learned from Nixon, too much documentation, too much control can bring down an administration. The leaders of Enron learned from the Iran – Contra affair. Nudge people in the direction you want them to go, and feign surprise when they are caught.

This is what happened at Abu Ghraib, but I don’t hold anyone in the administration innocent of humiliating me. I don’t excuse anyone that holds any power in the Republican party for my shame.

When I saw the images and understood what had happened, and realized that I had been humiliated by the actions and desperation of my own government, I was and still am livid.

Jeremiah 22:3

This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

Valerie Plame

Valerie Plame was a case officer in the Central Intelligence Agency. A case officer is the person who gathers the human intelligence. We have technical ways of knowing what our fellow sojourners on the planet are doing, and what they are capable of doing, but without human intelligence we cannot know what they are thinking of doing.

When Valerie Plame was exposed, all of the case officers that she spent time with in all of her assignments were also exposed, not to the public, but to our enemies. Those enemies are the ones that really matter. Not only were our case officers exposed, all of the “assets,” the people from other countries and cultures that she had developed relationships with were exposed. I suspect, but have no way of knowing, that some of them are now dead.

The White House, at least at the Vice President level, chose to commit treason by revealing this case officer for the purpose of imposing political discipline for the purpose of holding and gaining power. In my opinion, there should have been convictions and executions. However, that is not going to happen, so the best I can do is everything in my power to see that the party in power wanders in the desert of the minority for 40 years.

Weapons of mass destruction

After we started a war, after we destroyed the infrastructure of a country, after we pulled the keystone of an arch of power that balanced the power of the Shia to the power of the Sunni, and the power of the Arab to the power of the Persian, we discovered that all of the reasons were lies. All of them.

In Proverbs, being a fool is closely associated with being evil. This war is evil, not because we intended to see thousands and thousands of Iraqi’s dead, not because we intended to have many battle hardened veterans in the army, but because it was foolish.

After 9/11 we had a tremendous amount of political and diplomatic capitol. We could have used it to form alliances that would have kept us safe for a generation, and would have left the bulk of the cost of this guerrilla war to others. Instead, we wasted our capitol, we broke down our relationships, and we are now paying for the war ourselves.

The weapons of mass destruction did not exist, the intelligence that indicated that they were there was fabricated. We were lied to. It is apparent that Collin Powell was bullied into lying to the United Nations and he quit in disgust afterward. I am with him, I quit the party in disgust.

The Financial Markets

The SEC has stood by and watched the naked short sellers kill start up company after company. They only stepped in when the big banks and the friends of well placed officials felt the heat from big hedge funds attacking companies by effectively printing counterfeit stock through naked short selling. Then the SEC only decided to protect some companies.

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”

George Orwell “Animal Farm”

No one even investigated the bond ratings of companies much less the CDO’s. This was tantamount to turning our head while the retirement funds were robbed.

Isaiah 10:1,2

Woe to those who make unjust laws,to those who issue oppressive decrees,to deprive the poor of their rightsand withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,making widows their preyand robbing the fatherless

Stock Price Manipulation

Corporate management has been manipulating stock prices for the purpose of setting strike prices on their options. This has become so prevalent that the BMW method of investment uses it to find good companies with bad stock prices! Read BuildMWell’s posts on the Motley Fool. I will give the Republican party a little credit here, they did pass the Sarbanes-Oxley act to require CEO’s to accept responsibility for their written reports, but other more subtle lies are accepted and expected. I have come to the conclusion…….

EVIL MUST BE ROOTED OUT, EVEN IF THE ALTERNATIVE IS RISKY.

My Pocket Book Issues

I am a wage earner, I have worked in union and non-union jobs. I have seen excesses put on companies by unions, and seen employees made into little more than serfs in non-union companies.

As a wage earner, and a union member, I see that organization into unions helps people who have skills negotiate better wages, benefits, and most importantly, working conditions. Because of that I support the “Free Choice Act” As the democratic party also supports the “Free Choice Act” am inclined to vote Democrat, now that I am free of the geus to vote Republican.

As a union member that has a good contract I have seen the contract made ineffective by the political appointees that have been appointed to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As all grievances that cannot be settled between the union and the company must go the NLRB for arbitration, when the NLRB always finds for the company, the contract is pointless because the union has no way to enforce it.

To protect myself and my contract I must see that a fair NLRB is appointed. I only trust a Democrat to do this.

So I have to decided that….

VOTING MY POCKET BOOK IS TO VOTE DEMOCRAT.

So why Obama?

The answer boils down to this.

Mark 12:32To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

This passage, along with many others, leads me to believe that the true blessings found in The Christ are blessings of relationships, easy, true, deep, comfortable, gentle, and enjoyable relationships, both, with God the Father, and with each and every person on the planet. (And other planets if we find them.)

That being said, I find the current state of racial tension between the Americans of European decent and those of African decent to be a barrier to the relationships that are rightfully mine, granted to me through the blood of Jesus.

While Mr. Obama is just a man, he is a unique man in that he is neither black nor white, and is both black and white. If there was ever a person who in and of his breeding and rearing might have a chance to disrupt the status quo in relations between the ethnic groups in this country, it is he.

When Barack Obama stands in the Rose Garden and gives his speeches, every young black man in the country will know, not just believe, but know what I know. He will know that a black man can be the most powerful man on the planet. He will know, that a black man can gain that power without being violent or criminal.

When Mr. Obama stands in the White house press room, every African will know, that they cannot blame their failures on me, or themselves because of the color of their skin or their poverty. They, and we, will be able to begin our search for the true reasons for the poverty and pain in Africa.

John 8:32

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

My prayer is that Barack might at least provide a bridge for understanding across the cultures. My heart is heavy because my support for him will cost him dearly. When he becomes the President of the U.S. he will lose his life with his daughters, and possibly break those bonds forever.

It is also likely that the demonic powers of this world, which revel in hatred, and despise peace, will destroy him one way or another. This makes me feel like a commander sending a soldier on a mission I know he is ill equipped for and not likely to return from.

Ephesians 6:12

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against…. the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Well, this how the young Reagan supporter became the old Obama contributor.

Next time, you likely won't be. So fixing only one of these problems will not be enough.

No no, Gordon! Romney and Ryan just weren't conservative enough! They swung too far left!! Next time they need to choose candidates who are true to their conservative principles! Who aren't afraid to lay out the facts about how women don't really get pregnant from rape. How taxing the rich hurts the poor! How we need to double our defense spending while we cut SS and Medicare to the bone!

They can't just bow and sway with the wind, they have to stand firm!! Nevermind those busy-body fact-checkers!

That's the message we need conservatives to get! It's already what most of them believe, so don't try to talk them out of it.

Wow, I know yours is a re-post, but wow. I'm an atheist (even though I'm more Christian in many ways than all of my relatives, which run the gamut from slightly less atheist to born-again Christian). So it was easy for me to see, in real time, everything you have documented. I didn't have any sacred cows to worry about. That you were able to see it is tremendously more impressive.

And what it makes me realize is my post is sort of besides the point. We need a root cause analysis. And in the end, the problem is that the Republican party has been taken over by grifters. These grifters have been trying to pander, ever more so, to various shades of extremism, in order to make money or stay in power. Economics extremists (no new taxes, ever! tax cuts always pay for themselves!), military extremists (torture! WMD! we never met a war we didn't like!) and yes, sorry to say so, but also religious extremists who wish to impose their will on all of us. Of course these grifters don't really care about deficits, or keeping America safe, or states rights, or morality. They care about power. And keeping it. Period. I would say also money. Except money is power.

So, returning to my root cause analysis. The root cause is the Republican Party has been taken over by power hungry grifters. In the service of their goals, the party pandered to, and, perhaps to an extent they did not intend, empowered, various flavors of extremists.

This leads directly to my point number 1, a party intolerant or even openly scornful of non-traditional groups. It also leads, especially, to point number 2, a party way out of the mainstream on the issues (as illustrated by the 2012 Republican Party Platform).

Because the Republican party is out of the mainstream the issues, they draw joke candidates to their primary like moths to the flame--my point number 3. And also because of this, such candidate run stronger than moderates, who all but one drop out, my point number 4.

So the Republican Party is left with terrible positions on the issues, and a terrible candidate. Now what? Running a normal, reasonably honest campaign is doomed. So, better find ways to keep Democrats from voting. That's point number 5. And better lie your ass off, because lord knows you have no chance whatsoever if you're constrained by telling the truth. That's my point number 6.

So, in the end, that's the real problem to be solved: How to wrest the party from cynical, power-mad, grifters. Maybe losing 5 of 6 Presidential elections, as happened to Democrats from 1968 to 1988, could make it possible.

Wouldn't that be great. A Republican I could think of voting for in 2020. We can always dream.

This is right up there with "You didn't build that" as another nonsense meme

Even Warren backed away from that one. That had to be one of the more politically inept statements that came from the Obama campaign. It sat real well with the small business owners I'm friends with. Especially since they work 6 to 7 days a week upwards of 60 hours a week while creating jobs that the government desperately needs in order to have a tax base. So what was the underlying message? Since "you didn't build that" we get to take more. They got a real winner there...

Wow, I know yours is a re-post, but wow. I'm an atheist (even though I'm more Christian in many ways than all of my relatives, which run the gamut from slightly less atheist to born-again Christian). So it was easy for me to see, in real time, everything you have documented. I didn't have any sacred cows to worry about. That you were able to see it is tremendously more impressive. - Gordon66

ps, "meme" is no more liberal than any other useful new idea that someone has put a name too. Oh wait, maybe that does make it liberal. "New" and "useful" are not exactly qualities we've been seeing in the ideas coming from the conservative side these days.